


Peak Homosexual

by K_K_TiBal



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Homophobia, Homophobic Language, Love Confessions, M/M, Roommates, spiting homophobes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-02
Updated: 2018-04-02
Packaged: 2019-04-17 11:29:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,791
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14187951
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/K_K_TiBal/pseuds/K_K_TiBal
Summary: You know that thing that happens where you hear something really homophobic in public so you gay it up as much as you can? This is that story.





	Peak Homosexual

**Author's Note:**

> As always, big thanks to whelvenwings for being a marvellous beta reader :)

“I'm telling you, I already know how it's gonna end,” Dean said, folding his arms in front of himself smugly as they slowly moved up in line. “The most popular theory is that Kyle is is just in a dream the whole time, but I think it's an alternate reality that’s been using him the whole time. Subtle difference, big change.”  

Castiel raised an eyebrow at his roommate, blissfully oblivious to any such chatter. 

“If you already know how it ends, then why are we even bothering with the movie?” he asked, hiding a smile. 

Castiel, of course, knew why  _ he _ was here. 

“‘Cause it's about the  _ journey _ , Cas,” Dean said, with an emotional fist in the air. “And it's five dollar Tuesday, midterms are over, and all we were gonna do today anyway was see who could eat the most pizza.” 

“We could still do that,” Castiel mused. “The night is young.” 

“ _ Hell _ yeah.” 

They moved up a space in line as the person a couple spots ahead of them ordered a ticket for  _ The Crooked Line,  _ a movie that Castiel had been meaning to watch for a while now, but hadn’t yet had the chance to see with all of the midterms he’d been taking for the past couple of weeks. 

Alas, it was Dean’s turn to choose this time, so tonight they would be watching  _ Dreamscape _ . 

“Ugh. When is  _ The Crooked Line  _ leaving theaters? I’m sick of seeing the poster around.”

Castiel tilted his head to the side and stared straight ahead when he heard the disgusted voice from directly behind him. It was definitely the voice of someone older - an male adult in his forties, maybe - but he didn’t dare turn to look and hint that he was listening in. 

“I don't know. Hopefully soon.” Another voice answered, female this time. “I don’t understand why they can’t keep  _ those  _ kinds of films out of theaters where children could see them. They don’t have to expose everyone else to that propaganda.” 

Castiel took a deep breath in an attempt to keep his fists from clenching at his side. He realized now what the couple was upset about. 

_ The Crooked Line _ was a film about a gay couple. 

“You know how it is nowadays,” the first voice muttered, and Castiel stared staunchly ahead. “Everything has to be political. Before you know it,  _ those _ kinds of films are going to be the only kinds you can see in theaters.” The second voice tutted. 

“Liberal brainwashing, if you ask me.” 

Castiel was fuming silently as he and Dean walked forward to the ticket stand. 

“What can I get for you two?” the girl in the stand asked, with the tired smile of someone who’d been dealing with customers for too long. 

In one fluid movement - much to Castiel’s surprise - Dean grabbed Castiel’s hand and threaded their fingers together, pulling him close with a smile. 

“Hi. We’d like two tickets to  _ The Crooked Line,  _ please?” Dean said, just a little too loudly to be normal volume. “You see, the last time we saw it, it turned us gay, so we’d like to see it again. We’re testing to see just how gay we can get before we hit peak homosexual.” 

The girl’s eyes grew slightly wider before she hurriedly printed off the tickets and handed them through the bottom of the window, as Castiel felt his face flush a bright red. 

“Enjoy your movie!” she said, her voice wavering slightly. 

“We sure will!” Dean replied brightly, turning to wave the tickets and couple behind them. “If we’re not distracted the whole time!”

It was only then that Castiel allowed himself to look back and catch a glimpse of the horrified expressions on the faces of the two people that had been behind them in line and as awkward and embarrassing as that had been in the moment - those looks absolutely made it all worth it. 

They turned the corner down the hallway and Dean let go of his hand with a sound of disgust, and it was a heart wrenching moment for Castiel until he realized that the sound wasn’t directed at him. 

“ _ God _ they were gross,” Dean said with a shudder. “What kind of assholes talk like that?” 

Castiel discreetly wiped his sweaty palm on the front of his jeans and shrugged his shoulders, his heart only just calming down from the samba it had been dancing a few minutes before. 

Dean had held his hand. 

“Sorry about that, by the way...” Dean looked over at him with an apologetic grimace. “I wasn’t really thinking. They just pissed me off and I made a split-second decision.” 

“No, it’s -” Castiel cleared his throat when his voice cracked. “- it’s fine. They made me angry, too.” 

Dean chuckled and shoved his shoulder playfully. 

“Yeah, I could tell. Fucking assholes.” 

“We can still go see  _ Dreamscape  _ if you want,” Castiel said, checking the time on his ticket. “It’s just a theater over.”

“Nah, let’s go see  _ The Crooked Line. _ I hear it pisses off awful people.”

Castiel ducked his head and smiled fondly to himself. 

“ _ Peak homosexual _ ,” Castiel repeated as he opened the door to the theater for the both of them. “That was one of the best things I’ve ever heard you say.” 

Dean just winked as he passed, and Castiel scolded his heart for thinking it meant something. 

***

Castiel wasn’t sure what it was about jogging that he loved so much. 

It might have been the endorphins he got from the exercise in the fresh air around the lake that he liked jogging next to, or the clear head he got from zoning out for an hour - or it might be that this was one of the only things that he could hold over Dean’s head. 

“Cas -  _ h- hold up.” _

Castiel slowed his jog when he realized that he’d left Dean behind again and turned to see him leaning against a tree, sweat drenching the front of his shirt as he gasped for breath. 

“What’s wrong?” Castiel asked with a smile playing on his lips as he jogged in place. “It’s only been two miles.”

“ _ Motherfu-” _ Dean coughed and slid down the tree. “This is insane. How do you do this every day?” 

A pair of joggers waved as they passed the two of them along the path, and Castiel returned it with a nod.

“Your biceps are as big as my head and you can’t jog a few miles?” Castiel mused, stretching out his arms. 

“Cardio is different than weight training,” Dean said, head leaning back against the trunk. “Cardio is where happiness goes to  _ die _ .” 

Castiel shook his head with a laugh and held his hand out for Dean to take. 

“C’mon. There’s a rest stop just ahead with a drinking fountain. Then we can head back home and you can go back to watching Doctor Sexy.” 

“ _ We  _ can go back to watching Doctor Sexy,” Dean corrected as he took Castiel’s hand and lifted himself back up. “You owe me after this.” 

“Sure, Dean,” Castiel mused, letting go of his hand as soon as he was up, too self-conscious to let anything linger. 

He slowed his pace after that, keeping his jog slow enough to be next to Dean for the next five minutes, until a public restroom came into view when they emerged from the more wooded area and made it to a park. 

“ _ Fucking finally,” _ Dean wheezed out next to him. “I’m going to the bathroom. I’ll be right back.”

Castiel watched as Dean took a long swig of water from the drinking fountain, then groaned in pain when opening the restroom door took more than the minimum effort. 

Waiting was easy enough; Castiel should probably stretch a little anyway.

Two women came out of the women’s restroom - the two that had passed them previously on the trail - and were chatting idly as they filled up their water bottles. 

“ - and Mike was telling me that he feels a little uncomfortable around the new guy because. . . you know.” 

“I know. . . what?”

“Well, he’s. . . gay.”

The corners of Castiel’s lips tugged into a slight frown; he tried not to look like he was listening in as he stretched his hamstrings. 

“The new guy is? Did he tell you that?”

“No, but you can tell.” 

“Oh. I didn’t realize.”

“He’s kind of feminine, has  _ the voice _ , you know? It’s kind of shoved down your throat.”

The two women laughed while Castiel felt a different kind of anger from the moment in the movie theater pool in his gut. This wasn’t intentionally as malicious but it still made him distinctly uncomfortable.

“Just trust me,” the first woman said to the other with a smug smile, “My gaydar is never wrong. I can sense them from a mile away.” 

The two finished up filling their water bottles and turned, seeming to finally notice Castiel’s presence. 

“The view’s better up close,” the blonde woman said with a wink, while the other woman rolled her eyes with a smile like she’d seen her friend do this a hundred times before. 

“Sorry,” Castiel murmured, ducking his head down as his face flushed at the flirtation. “I just zoned out. I promise I wasn’t staring.” 

“Mmhmm,” the woman said with a smile that she probably thought seemed knowing. “Is there a name that goes with that pretty face?” 

“Um, Castiel...” he murmured, desperate for Dean to get out of the restroom so they could leave. “Sorry, I’m just waiting for -”

Just then, the men’s door opened and Dean walked out, looking exhausted but better than he’d been when he first walked in.  

“ - my boyfriend.”

He wasn’t entirely sure why he said it, but it probably was a combination of wanting to prove the women wrong about their stereotypical views and wanting to get out of this situation as soon as he possibly could. 

Either way, the word felt right on his tongue.

“What’s up?” Dean asked, looking a little concerned at Castiel’s panicked expression. 

“Nothing… babe.” Castiel said, trying to keep his face as neutral as possible as he slid an arm around Dean’s waist when he got closer. Now he completely understood what Dean was talking about when he’d mentioned split-second decisions.  “But we should probably head home soon if we want to get back in time to pick up our daughter from kindergarten.” 

_ What?  _ he thought.  _ They had a  _ daughter _ now? _

He wasn’t entirely sure where this story had come from or where it was going, but he prayed to whoever was listening that Dean would just roll with it. 

“Ah, we got plenty of time!” Dean returned the arm, pressed a quick kiss onto Castiel’s cheek, and Castiel forgot how to breathe. “But I guess we’ll have time for a nice makeout in the woods if we leave now. See you later!” 

They both waved to the two joggers - both of whom looked severely taken aback - and went back the way they came until they were out of listening distance. 

“So… wanna fill me in?” Dean asked with a wry smile on his face. 

Castiel just sighed. 

“They were under the impression that all gay men are a certain way and neither of us are really the way they were describing and I just… wanted to subvert their impressions.” Castiel shook his head. He’d overreacted and Dean was going to tell him so. 

Instead, he just snorted and nodded his head. 

“Nice.” 

Was it though? Or was it a lie? None of their pretending was close to the truth. They weren’t dating, they didn’t have a daughter, and neither of them were even gay. Dean was bisexual, Castiel knew, and Castiel was… well.

Castiel glanced over at Dean and flushed. 

Complicated, but definitely not straight.

Half-truths aside, there was also the fact that he  _ liked  _ pretending he and Dean were a couple. He liked it a lot. He liked the way his heart skipped a beat when Dean touched him and he liked the way Dean looked at him like his entire world revolved around him - but only while he was pretending. It was only after the charade was over that it felt like everything that didn’t belong to him anyway was being ripped from under his feet. 

“So, what’s our daughter’s name?” Dean asked, bringing Castiel out of his headspace and back to the path in the woods. 

“I don’t know,” Castiel said with a shrug. “Claire.” 

“I kinda like ‘Krissy’. What do you think?”

“I think that the first one home gets to name our fake-daughter.” 

And Castiel took off running down the pathway until Dean’s protests and Castiel’s guilt faded behind him. 

***

It was a Thing they did now. For the greater good. 

Whenever they overheard someone being homophobic in public - which was more often than they’d like - they would go out of their way to hold hands and talk loudly about their plans for a date later that night. It got easier for Castiel, and even though he knew the hand-holding and the affectionate nuzzling would never last, it was nice while it was happening. As long as it never went too far, he’d be okay. 

Their weekly grocery run went just about as it usually did - with Castiel piling the fruits and vegetables into their carts and Dean throwing in the microwavable meals - and Castiel was tempted to make a joke about how a certain table cloth didn’t come in rainbow, and that they should hold hands about it. 

He was just looking for reasons, now. 

“And you’re sure we won’t need more milk this week?” Castiel asked, staring at the single gallon of milk in their cart as they stood in line. 

“Yeah, we’ll be fine,” Dean assured him. 

“But you drink milk like a racehorse.” 

Dean paused and held a finger up into the air. 

“That is  _ not _ how that saying goes.” 

Castiel looked up at him with a smile, studying the slight curve on his lips that Dean got whenever he heard something amusing. He’d say it was his favorite look on Dean, but  _ everything  _ looked good on Dean. 

“So,” a female voice from somewhere behind them said softly, and Castiel was pretty sure he’d gotten a glimpse of her before they’d gotten in line. “I told Summer that she can bring her - her girlfriend over for dinner if she insists. But I made it clear that they absolutely can’t do any form of PDA while they’re here. I don’t want Jemma to see and I especially don’t want people talking.”

Castiel glanced at Dean, who was already looking annoyed at the conversation they were being forced to listen to. 

“Good,” a male voice responded. “Not that I have anything against it, I’m just glad I won’t be forced to see it.”

Dean wiggled his eyebrows, obviously trying to convey something non-verbally that Castiel wasn’t quite getting. Why was he looking like that? Why did he move his head like that? Why did he keep glancing at Castiel’s lips - 

Oh. 

Dean was asking if he could  _ kiss  _ him _.  _

The steady heartbeat in his chest picked up the pace and he considered the next few life-changing moments he was about to experience. The people behind them were complaining about gay PDA and this would absolutely be the best way to annoy them, but was it something Castiel wanted?

Well, of course it was. 

The problem wasn’t whether or not he wanted to kiss Dean, the problem was whether or not he wanted to let the only kiss that he’d ever have with Dean be used for a lie. 

Castiel’s let his own eyes fall to Dean’s lips - just out of curiosity, just for a moment - and the decision was made before he could completely process it. 

Damn the consequences. 

“Something you need?” Castiel asked, leaning in slightly, hoping that it sounded coy and not terrified. 

He waited for Dean’s expression to change, for the overacting to start, but his warm gaze only flicked from his lips back up to his eyes.  

“I love you,” Dean murmured - eyes soft - and closed the gap between them, pressing their lips together gently. 

Castiel’s eyes flew open, and none of this was a game anymore. What was real? What wasn’t? Was that acting? It  _ had _ to be. 

Dean’s lips were real, though - and they were soft and hesitant against his own - but every gentle movement sent shockwaves through his system. Castiel’s body responded of its own volition, and he was just a civilian casualty in Dean’s line of fire, now, as he could feel himself falling for their own deceit hook, line, and sinker. 

Castiel’s eyes closed while his mouth opened, accepting everything that Dean was offering before a loud clearing of someone’s throat interrupted everything. 

They both pulled away, Castiel staring at the ground while his face burned. That was the line he should have known not to cross. It was too far. 

“Groceries?” the woman at the checkstand asked, looking amused at the whole situation. 

“Uh, yeah. Sorry.” Dean rubbed at the back of his neck awkwardly and started piling their cart of groceries onto the conveyor belt. “Honeymoon phase.” 

Castiel glanced over at the line next to them, and saw that the couple behind them had moved. 

***

The kiss and the love confession plagued Castiel for the next three days. 

Trying to sleep at night was out of the question, not while he knew what it felt like to kiss Dean Winchester and  _ especially _ not while he knew what it was like to hear those words directed at him. 

Looking Dean in the eye and acting normal around him was just as difficult, so he spent as much time as he could studying at school and more or less avoiding him altogether. 

But he couldn’t live like this. He couldn’t be around Dean, knowing that at any moment it might be time for them to play pretend again and confuse his poor heart even more. 

As much as he dreaded it, he was going to have to have a talk with Dean. 

Castiel waited until Tuesday night, when he knew Dean would be at home studying for a physics quiz, and Castiel would be able to say what he had to say and leave with minimum disturbance. It would be quick and painless - like ripping off a bandaid. 

“Dean?” he called, stepping out of his bedroom and shutting the door behind him. 

“Kitchen!”

Castiel made small steps towards the kitchen, stalling for as long as possible before he finally found Dean sitting at their small table with a pencil in his mouth. 

Dean glanced up and plucked the pencil from his lips, setting it down. 

“What’s up?” he said, and frowned. “You okay?”

Castiel nodded slowly and set a hand on the table, staring down at it instead of looking Dean in the eyes - like the coward he was. 

“I just… I wanted to let you know…” He tapped on the table and chewed on his bottom lip before looking up. “That thing we do sometimes? Where we pretend to date?” 

Dean smiled and let out an amused breath of air. 

“Yeah?”

“I can’t do that anymore.”

Dean’s smile dropped and confusion settled in the lines of his face instead. 

“Oh. Yeah, okay.” Dean shrugged his shoulders like it wasn’t a big deal. “ I’m sorry if the kiss was… you know. Too far or whatever. I shouldn’t have -”

“No, it’s alright.” Castiel pressed his lips together and ignored the pang of hurt in his heart. The deception wasn’t fair to himself, and it absolutely wasn’t fair to Dean - someone who thought he was having some harmless fun with his best friend. Dean deserved to know the truth of why Castiel had to put an end to their charade.

It was now or never. Time lay everything out into the light.

“It just… pretending hurts too much when you want things to be real.”

Dean’s lips twitched, like he was failing to form words. 

“I’m sorry. I won’t let it get in the way of our friendship but I thought I should give you a good reason -”

“Hold up.” Dean interrupted, holding a hand in the air between them. “ _ You _ want to date  _ me? _ ” 

Castiel turned his head away, feeling the embarrassment well in his gut. 

“If that makes you uncomfortable -”

“No, that’s awesome!” Dean was smiling widely as he stood up, nearly tripping over himself to get close enough to grab Castiel’s hand. “I thought you weren’t - I don’t know. I didn’t think you were interested.” 

It was now Castiel’s turn to forget how to form words. 

Dean was - Dean wanted to date him? For real? 

“I thought for sure that you were avoiding me and trying to figure out how to shut me down after the kiss and the - well.” Dean rubbed at his neck and looked down shyly. “I meant what I said. Before kissing you. So.” 

Castiel stared at him, his heart ready to burst. 

“This is real?” He asked, hesitant hope building up inside of him. 

“This is real.” Dean said with a chuckle. 

With that, Castiel pulled Dean in for another kiss by the back of his neck, eager to experience it all again, but this time while knowing it  _ meant something.  _

***

“We are getting an extra gallon of milk this time.” Castiel insisted. “You keep saying we don’t need any, but we keep running out way too soon.” 

Dean grinned. He was leaning on the cart, and staring at his new boyfriend. 

“Whatever you say, babe.” 

Castiel flushed as he added in an extra jug of milk into their cart, still not used to the reality of everything that had happened recently. 

“You don’t have to stare at me all the time, you know. You didn’t before we were dating.”

“Not that  _ you _ noticed,” Dean countered, and straightened up to press a quick kiss to Castiel’s lips. “I’m very good at acting, I hear.” 

“Hey! Hey, you two!” 

Castiel looked up hesitantly, a sinking feeling in his chest at the possibility of yet  _ another _ homophobic person upset at them. 

Two women around their age were holding a shopping cart a little ways away - one with bright red hair and the other dark and curly - and the redhead was waving at them with a smile. 

They were holding hands.

“Hey! You guys are fucking cute!” 

Castiel sagged in instant relief at the call and waved back. 

“Hey, thanks!” Dean called back. “Not so bad yourselves!”

They both laughed and waved one last time before pushing the shopping cart out of view. 

“I think this is it.” Dean murmured, reaching for Castiel’s hand. “I think we’ve reached peak homosexual.”

Castiel squeezed it once. 

“About time.”


End file.
